Richard Branson set to leave Earth: What you need to know about the billionaire space race
The last century’s space race was a competition between the world’s great powers and a test of their ideologies. It would prove to be a synecdoche of the entire Cold War between the capitalist United States and the socialist Soviet Union.
The starting pistol in the race to the future was fired in 1961 when President John F Kennedy committed to “achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth” and it ended with a US victory on 24 July 1969 when the crew of the Apollo 11 mission splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
There are no such stakes in today’s race. The values of the future aren’t in question, merely the egos of three billionaires. One of these men is launching his private spacecraft off the planet on Sunday. Another follows suit soon after.
So here’s how they compare and what you need to know:
Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX have all designed their own spacecraft
How far can the billionaires’ rockets go?
“My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars,” said Sir Richard Branson announcing that he was going to be among the first people his spaceflight company launches on a mission.
Unfortunately, not only will Virgin Galactic’s mission fall short of the stars, the two-and-a-half hour mission will also fall short of space, at least according to the internationally agreed definition.
Sir Richard Branson is the billionaire owner of Virgin Galactic
VSS Unity is a spaceplane (perhaps just a plane?) that launches in mid-air from the belly of a carrier aircraft at an altitude of about 15km, and then flies up to an altitude of about 80km, allowing the passengers to feel nearly weightless for approximately six minutes and glimpse the curvature of the Earth.
The problem for Sir Richard is that the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) defines the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space as 100km above Earth’s mean sea level, the so-called Karman Line, 20km higher than he is going to travel.
VSS Unity technically will not actually enter space
The definition of the edge of space is a bit of a challenge. Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t suddenly end but becomes progressively thinner at greater altitudes. In very simple terms, physicist Theodore von Karman’s solution was to define the edge of space as the highest point at which an aircraft could fly without reaching orbital velocity.
While Karman himself and the FAI regards this altitude as 100km, Sir Richard has the US Air Force and NASA on his side. They both place the boundary of space at 80km above mean sea level, partially because putting it at 100km would complicate issues regarding surveillance aircraft and reconnaissance satellites for the US – although the Department of Defence subscribes to the FAI definition.
It’s not clear whether this definition is covered by the small print of Virgin Galactic’s customer tickets, but ultimately the company aims to be operating multiple space tourism flights a year, and already has more than 600 customers for the $250,000 (£189,000) seats – including Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Jeff Bezos is the billionaire owner of Blue Origin. Pic: AP
“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On 20 July, I will take that journey with my brother,” said Jeff Bezos, announcing his seat on a journey to the edge of space.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket is capable of actually making it there, with a maximum achieved altitude of above 100km, but how high it will bring its four passengers hasn’t yet been confirmed.
These passengers will be Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, a mystery customer who paid $28m (£20m) for the seat in an auction, and 82-year-old Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk, a woman who had astronaut training in the 1960s but was denied the chance to go into space because of her gender.
While the mission will be scooped to launch by Virgin Galactic, by inviting Wally Funk it has managed to scoop Branson on getting a famous victim of gender injustice into space – she had previously put money down to fly with Virgin Galactic.
Jeff Bezos invited Wally Funk to join his spaceflight. Pic: Blue Origin/AP
It will take three minutes to take the passengers up to the required altitude, at which point they will have three minutes more in which to enjoy their sudden near-weightlessness. They’ll be allowed to unbuckle their seatbelts and float around, as well as examine the curvature of the Earth through one of the capsule’s windows. Just over 10 minutes after launch, the spacecraft will land back on Earth.
The 20 July flight will fittingly occur on the anniversary of the moon landings in 1969, but unlike the Apollo missions there will be no human piloting the modules. Instead, Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft is completely autonomous and will follow a programmed mission timeline before parachuting back to Earth.
The company has said that it expects to sell seats for more tourism flights in the future, but it isn’t clear how this will happen and the tickets for New Shepard are yet to go on general sale.
Elon Musk is the billionaire owner of SpaceX. Pic:NBC/YouTube
“I want to die on Mars – just not on impact,” Elon Musk once quipped, although he hasn’t announced his immediate intention to travel into space at all.
Unlike both Bezos and Branson, Musk’s private spaceflight company, SpaceX, has a long and successful history of launching payloads way beyond the 100km mark.
SpaceX has announced it will be launching an all-civilian mission into orbit by the end of the year, with the passengers actually orbiting around the planet for up to four days before returning to Earth.
All four crew seats on the mission have been paid for by Jared Isaacman, the founder of Shift4 Payments, who has declined to reveal the costs.
Isaacman is donating two of the seats to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, with one being given to a staff member there, and another intended to be raffled off to a member of the public. He hopes to raise $200m (£145m) for the hospital, alongside a $100m (£72m) donation of his own.
Elon Musk hasn’t mentioned flying on this mission himself, although he has long articulated a plan to travel to Mars, plans that have been described as a dangerous delusion by Britain’s chief astrophysicist Lord Martin Rees.
SpaceX’s images of the terraforming of Mars. Pic: SpaceX
Back in 2016, Musk outlined his vision of building a colony on Mars “in our lifetimes” – with the first rocket propelling humans to the Red Planet by 2025.
For many years the company used an image of the Martian surface being terraformed (turned Earth-like) in its promotional material. However, a NASA-sponsored study published in 2018 dismissed these plans as impossible with today’s technology.
Recently Musk has tweeted he believed it was “possible to make a self-sustaining city on Mars by 2050, if we start in five years” but as of yet, SpaceX has not planned any missions to the planet.
At least 20 people have died after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Afghanistan, the Taliban has said.
The tremor was recorded near the city of Mazar-e Sharif, in the northern Balkh province, at around 12.59am on Monday (8.29pm in the UK).
The Taliban Health Ministry added that 320 were injured, while ministry spokesperson Sharfat Zaman said that the numbers of dead and injured might rise.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) has issued an orange alert on its system of quake impacts, and suggested that “significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread”.
A rescuer works following an earthquake at an unidentified location in Afghanistan. Pic: Afghan Red Crescent / Reuters
Previous events at that alert level have required a regional or national level response, according to the USGS’s alert system.
Balkh province spokesperson Haji Zaid added that the earthquake destroyed part of the city’s holy shrine, known as the Blue Mosque.
Soldiers dig up debris after an earthquake in Mazar-e Sharif, northern Afghanistan. Pic: Haji Zaid
Damage to the Blue Mosque in Mazar-e Sharif. Pic: Haji Zaid
The United Nations in Afghanistan said on X that it is on the ground assessing needs and delivering aid, and that: “We stand with the affected communities and will provide the necessary support.”
Mazar-e Sharif is the fifth-largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of around 523,000.
Located on two major active fault lines, Afghanistan is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes: More than 1,400 people were killed and at least 3,250 others injured after a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit the country’s eastern regions in September.
That tremor wiped out villages in the Mazar Dara valley, which Sky’s Asia correspondent Cordelia Lynch visited in October.
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In 2015, an earthquake struck northeastern Afghanistan, killing several hundred people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan.
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Four large earthquakes also struck in the Herat province in 2023, each magnitude 6.3. The Taliban said at the time that at least 2,445 people had died.
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A total of 28 people have died following Hurricane Melissa’s rampage across Jamaica, the government has confirmed.
Melissa, one of the strongest storms on record to make landfall in the Caribbean, brought with it winds of up to 185mph when it hit the island earlier this week.
The Red Cross described it as a “disaster of unprecedented catastrophe”.
Melissa ravaged through Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.
It weakened by the time it reached Cuba on Wednesday morning but still brought devastation – with houses collapsed and roads blocked.
A statement from the government of Jamaica said it was “deeply saddened to confirm 28 fatalities associated with the passage of Hurricane Melissa”.
It went on: “We extend heartfelt condolences to the families, friends, and communities mourning their loved ones.”
Eyewitness: ‘Send help’ – the desperate pleas from Hurricane Melissa survivors
The confirmation came as the first British repatriation flight was setting off from the island on Saturday evening local time.
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The flight, chartered by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, was for those “unable to leave Jamaica on commercial routes”.
Essential relief supplies are now rolling into some of the hardest hit areas.
Humanitarian aid has arrived and is waiting to be distributed. Pic: AP
The UK government is mobilising an additional £5m in emergency humanitarian funding – on top of £2.5m announced earlier this week – to support the region’s recovery.
This new funding will enable the UK to send humanitarian supplies – including more than 3,000 shelter kits and over 1,500 solar-powered lanterns to help those whose homes have been damaged and those without power.
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Jamaica victims left shell-shocked
The UK is working with the World Food Programme and Red Cross, to ensure emergency relief reaches those who need it most.
At least 25 people died in the southern Haitian coastal town of Petit-Goave after the La Digue river burst its banks as a result of the hurricane, according to the town’s mayor Jean Bertrand Subreme.
Ukrainian soldiers encircled by Russian forces in the key eastern city of Pokrovsk have started surrendering, the defence ministry in Moscow claims.
But Ukraine‘s military has pushed back on the report by the TASS state news agency, saying the situation is “difficult and dynamic”.
Kyiv has also claimed its positions in some districts of Pokrovsk have improved despite its city being infiltrated by Russian troops.
Latest: Russian attacks are ‘nuclear terrorism’, Ukraine warns
Ukraine is increasing its number of assault troops in the area, the 7th Rapid Response Corps said on Facebook.
And Ukrainian troops are also working to cut Moscow’s military logistics routes, it added.
The Russian defence ministry also said its forces defeated a team of Ukrainian special forces that headed to Pokrovsk in a bid to prevent Russian forces from advancing further into the city.
‘Footage of Ukrainian troops after surrendering’
It later posted videos of two Ukrainian troops who, it claimed, had surrendered.
The footage showed the men, one dressed in fatigues and the other in a dark green jacket, sat against a wall in a dark room, as they spoke of fierce fighting and encirclement by Russian forces.
The videos’ authenticity could not be independently verified, and there was no immediate public comment from Kyiv on the Russian ministry’s claims.
Ukrainian police officers on patrol in Pokrovsk. File pic: Reuters
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously acknowledged that some Russian units had infiltrated the city. But he maintained that Ukraine is tackling them.
He said Russia had deployed 170,000 troops in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, where Pokrovsk is located, in a major offensive to capture the city and claim a big battlefield victory.
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Multiple Russian missiles strike Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia
‘Operation to destroy enemy forces’
Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Saturday the situation in Pokrovsk remained “hardest” for Ukrainian forces, who were trying to push Russian troops out.
But he insisted there was no encirclement or blockade as Moscow has claimed.
“A comprehensive operation to destroy and push out enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing. The main burden lies on the shoulders of the units of the armed forces of Ukraine, particularly UAV operators and assault units,” Mr Syrskyi said.
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Why is Pokrovsk important?
One of Moscow’s key aims has been to take all of Ukraine’s industrial heartland of coal-rich Donbas, which comprises of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Kyiv still controls about 10% of Donbas.
Capturing Pokrovsk, which Russian media has dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk”, and Kostiantynivka to its northeast, would give Moscow a platform to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
‘Key Russian fuel pipeline struck’
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military intelligence, known as HUR, has said its forces have hit an important fuel pipeline in the Moscow region that supplies the Russian army.
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Dramatic drone rescue in Ukraine’s kill zone
In a statement on Telegram, HUR said the operation late on Friday was a “serious blow” to Russia’s military logistics.
HUR said its forces struck the Koltsevoy pipeline, which is 250 miles long and supplies the Russian army with gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from refineries in Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow.
The operation, which targeted infrastructure near Ramensky district, destroyed all three fuel lines, HUR said.
The pipeline was capable of transporting up to three million tonnes of jet fuel, 2.8 million tonnes of diesel and 1.6 million tonnes of gasoline annually, HUR said.
Russia ‘targets gas production site’
Also overnight, Russia launched an attack on a gas production site in Poltava, in central Ukraine.
A fire broke out, the local administration said, but no injuries were reported.
Kyiv condemns ‘nuclear terrorism’
Ukraine’s foreign ministry has condemned Russian strikes this week on substations powering some of its nuclear plants.
It accused Russia of carrying out “targeted strikes on such substations” which “bear the hallmarks of nuclear terrorism”.
Elsewhere, a civilian died and 15 more were injured on Saturday morning after Russia struck the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine with a ballistic Iskander missile, local official Vitaliy Kim said.
A child was among those hurt in the strike, he added.
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